Player Sicilia

I must apologise for the length of time since my last posting but I have been recuperating for reasons that will become apparent later. Anyway, back to Sicily, where I found my way to the safe-house and read the briefing documents, or ‘Event manual’

My VIP (‘Target’ to you)turned out to be one of the party I had been sent to ‘guide’ which has its good and bad points. Good, because he’ll be close and I’ll have more opportunities. Bad, because I’ll be too close and less able to avoid the ‘after-event’ fall-out.

‘Safe-houses’ that you see on TV and in films are not really representative of reality, except that they are almost invariably located in areas that could only be called ‘safe’ if you drove through in a convoy of armoured Range-Rovers. The idea is that the people there are well-used to minding their own business and won’t call the cops if a few bangs and crashes disturb their night. Here on Sicily, things were a little different, as you might expect. The villa I was given was in a great location with lots of exits and good views down them all. I had a fair hike to meet the coach every day but I could do that mostly on the beach, so it wasn’t a hardship and it kept the driver away from my ‘villa’ which is no bad thing either.

Just the other side of town was the hotel where we picked up our party, a perfectly acceptable three or four star in the classic shabby-chic Italian fashion so beloved of romantic couples and so hated of these unromantic English people.

Yesterday afternoon had been an ‘acclimatisation’ for them, as we all met at the Hotel for coffee and introductions and then they had the rest of the day to explore Pozzalo, which is a very friendly place and has, as my ‘crib sheet’ told me and many of the guests confirmed, a harbour that has featured in some episodes of the series. I imagine that most of them avoided the lovely restaurants and headed straight there. They had opted not to have the extra expense of a tour manager so all their complaints, real or imaginary, had to be handled by the unfailingly polite reception staff. Those cheerfully pretty girls were, as is the way of post-recession Italy and Spain, most likely graduates and multi-lingual to an extent that they could insult people in many languages and do it cleverly enough to not be noticed. ‘Keith’s still inside’ muttered the first on the coach ‘Sorting out breakfast’ she smiled at the woman behind her ‘If you could call it that’. Ah, Keith Corduroy, as I called him, the party’s resident anorak and self-appointed expert. Leaving the rest to creak their beige-clad bodies onto the coach and fight for a favourite seat, I by-passed the always-dodgy revolving hotel door and used the porter’s entrance. There, at Reception, stood a tall man with an unfortunate jacket that clashed mightily with his blood-pressure complexion. After berating Gianni the night Manager , loudly and slowly over the quality of tea available at the breakfast and paucity of a decent ‘Full English’ he turned and murmured ‘Bloody Eyties, bloody useless’ smiling, as if I obviously agreed. ‘Well, can’t stand here chatting all day, let’s get cracking!’ I could have used a beta-blocker or two at that point to slow down my sudden urge to finish the’ jobette’ right there but, flashing an apologetic shrug at Gianni, I followed Mr. Cordury’s over-large trousers outside. You may think that I’m making him sound like a jingoistic stereotype but I assure you that people like this exist and indeed, seem to haunt me whenever I would really rather blend into the scenery.

Training manuals talk about maintaining your professional approach to a job but what they usually mean is ‘not giving someone a slap when they patently deserve one’ You can imagine that in my job and with my skill set the temptation to act with extreme professionalism can be overpowering, especially once I discovered that Keith was in fact, my ‘VIP’. With the prospect of a holiday as soon as he was ‘completed’ looming over me, I had to fight the urge to just throw him under the coach wheels and have done with it but that would not be very professional, now would it?

Keith Corduroy, on his phone as usual, probably checking for continuity errors in episodes of Montalbano

Our first stop is the Baroque town of Ragusa Ibla where we see various locations used in certain episodes. Keith knows exactly which.

Lunch follows at a restaurant that featured in the stories – not, says Keith, the original, since that has moved- and then we explore a place that retains its individuality in the face of onslaught by tourism. It also demonstrates one of the traits that entrances English visitors to Southern European countries, their relaxed attitude towards traffic law, health and safety.

Keith wasn’t entranced, he was outraged, I think at home he would have called the Police immediately.

In the afternoon it’s on to Porto Empedocole to see the town that author Andrei Camilleri lived in and which erected a statue to him in the main plaza.

Cue photo opportunities, more coffee and cakes in his favourite café and a mutiny when I suggest that we might like to see the wonderful temples in the Valley of the Kings on the way back – evidently not in the books, according to Keith. We are saving the best until last as we drop down into Marina di Modica and the location of Montalbano’s house. To add to the effect I ask our driver to play Keith’s CD of the theme music and the coach is rapidly, well, quite quickly, evacuated as the hallowed ground is reached.

Keith reveals to the party that the house is now a bed and breakfast and that we could have stayed here instead of that ‘squalid hovel’ I almost point out that most of the party would not make the five steps up to the entrance and that the shared breakfast table may have been a solitary affair for him on the second day, but resist my baser urges.

Montalbano is often pictured in the series swimming off this very beach and Keith tells me he is keen to try it. I remind him that the guide books advise against this due to rip-tides and currents but that the filming is done under controlled conditions and cut very cleverly to only show the Inspector at the point of entering or leaving the sea. This does not convince Keith, who poo- poohs my warnings, which I repeat, very loudly, to avoid any future arguments. ‘That’s just to keep amateurs away’ he insists, ‘Keith swam at county level’ chirps up his wife, ample bosom swelling with pride (But it might just have been wind).

The party disperse to explore the location, including the car park site which was used as a market or outdoor café as the script demanded. I keep a wary eye on Keith who is wearing his capacious rucksack, from a corner of which protrudes something that looks suspiciously like a hotel towel. Sure enough, the next time I see Keith he is heading semi-nakedly away from his wife (as most men in their right minds would have done long ago) toward the surf, budgie-smugglers, thankfully not corduroy, bulging ominously. I move back around the old watch-tower to where a rowing boat, prepared for the evenings fishing, sits on a launching trolley. Thankfully I look inside before running it down the slip-way as it feels suspiciously light and so it should do as it is a prop for the show.

One of the builders renovating the mediaeval tower calls down that he has seen Keith in the breakers and is calling the harbour-master at the marina. In the absence of anything bigger than the life-belt hanging on the Tower-wall, I lift that down, slide off my polyester tour guide jacket and chinos and plunge in after him. He hasn’t got far but is already in trouble, trying a stiff breast-stroke, head erect looking for all the world like famous Channel-swimmer Captain Webb on the old packets of matches.

Something tells me that a damp match would be a suitable metaphor for his swimming ability and I get close enough to throw him the life-preserver, holding onto the rope and keeping far enough away to escape his flailing arms. Too many well-meaning people have been drowned in the act of life-saving for me to risk getting within strangling range. He sees me and opens his mouth to shout something. With perfect timing water fills his airway. Whatever he was trying to say (probably ‘This never happened in the show’) Keith isn’t trying to put the belt over his head, but manages to loop the rope around his neck. I pull it, hard, inadvertently (!) cutting off his air supply and he adopts a starfish-like posture as I loosen the rope and put my arm around him in classic life-saving style, but a little tighter, just to be sure – you can never strangle someone enough. I can make no headway against the rip and so relax into it, floating us quite a way down the coast before I hear the buzz-flap, buzz-flap of a semi-rigid boat approaching at speed. I welcome this as Keith is not very good company. I am inclined to suggest that the Harbour Guard recovered both of us with characteristic Italian brio and flair but we probably looked more like a tonne of wet fish being pulled on board.

I immediately start the Kiss of life (No tongues and not much real air) and roll Keith’s white whaleness into the recovery position, but I think both the crew and myself knew it was futile. Mindful of the public’s predilection for filming any tragedy with a view to selling the pictures, I kept my back to the shore but it was largely deserted. The rigid steered around the back of a large cruiser (a Canteri di Pisa 77 footer for you yachteraks) and we pulled alongside the diving platform where I was helped up into the cockpit. Keith’s corpse I realised with a jolt, stayed in the smaller boat as it turned and powered away. I realised that up to this point no words had been spoken (especially by Keith) - Weird was not the word.

A blanket and a large coffee with a suspicious quantity of good brandy soon warmed me up which was good, as I needed to think. Bursts of radio chatter distracted me as the large boat got underway, not into the marina as I expected, where an ambulance waited, but out to sea. There was something familiar about the voice on the airwaves and I got a strange tickling sensation in my back, close to my old Sicilian wound.

A crewman beckons me to follow him down the companionway and I wait for the knock on the head or the silenced bullet that will confirm my worst suspicions. Instead I receive a surprise and an explanation, not necessarily in that order. It seems that Keith was one of those people who love to see their opinions in print and that he had quite a following for his holiday Blog: ‘Travel Traumas with Terence Truthful’ The District of Puglia had invested heavily in attracting tourism but one piece by Keith revealing the ‘Truth behind the Hype’ had destroyed their work overnight. It had taken the local tourist board here in Sicily a lot of work to secure the filming of a further series of Montalbano and they could not afford to allow anything, or anybody to threaten that, so called in some favours, which is where I came in. Evidently the newspapers would show, correctly, that Keith was a victim of his own stupidity but, alas, the heroic tour guide’s body would not be found for many months. Actually, the brandy-laced coffee was making me feel a little heroic, but then I needed-to, when I realised that the Head of the local tourist board, sitting decorously across a white sofa in the stateroom, was a certain Melissa Generossi.

Being a gentleman I have to draw a discrete veil over the next few weeks but needless to say I was in a state of permanent fear that I would end up in hospital either very dead or very exhausted.

In the end we both had to return to our lives but I know that Sicily will always have a special place in my heart and I think you should go, too. The Head of the Tourist Board insists…

Contra-Flow

Like me, you’ve probably spent a lot of time on Britain’s motorways at a brain-numbing 50mph through road works where no-one actually seems to be working. After two lots of 20 miles of that on an almost deserted M1 I found the one place in the country they were actually doing something: they had closed the roads completely around Luton Airport. It wasn’t as if Easy Jet hadn’t told me, they even sent me a text suggesting I allow more time for my trip. More time, to be herded through security, shouted at to keep moving, told to strip, surrounded by Polish and Latvian voices… not a good impression to make on those of my age for whom such things have a very dark precedent.

My ticket had priority boarding, giving me the right to be first in the queue to wait for the party of old duffers to try and lift their strictly restricted cabin bags into the lockers. Cure for more shouting from the guards…

Because of some mix-up, the people who had paid extra to sit by the emergency exits were two rows away and so there was more chaos and upheaval before the captain came over the tannoy to reassure us that we weren’t going to crash and burn but that we ought to pay attention anyway. Pilots must be trained to make announcements as if they are ‘really bored to be lifting this cattle-truck off the ground when I really ought to be in a fighter-jet’ I reckon that they time the mid-flight announcement for when the most people are asleep, waking them with a start to let them know that everything is ok and we are currently at a phenomenal height over a country we’ve never visited and we are about to go over the bay of Biscay – yeah, whatever!

I sound grumpy, but it’s not because they have taken the part of the safety demonstration out where the stewardess demonstrates blowing up the lifejacket, I always loved that, no, it’s the way that I was conned into taking this job by the Office.

‘We have spare ticket for a week in Sicily’ she said

‘You’ll love it’ she said

‘We went last year, the markets are to die for – sorry – no pun intended! Lol - All you have to do is a little job, more of a jobette, really and the rest of the week is your own’

‘OK, send it, I’d like to see where they raced the Targa Florio anyway’

‘The Wahta Floriwhat?’

‘Never mind, just send it’

Which is why I’m here, on a special tour ‘In search of Montalbano’

The TV series of the ‘Inspector Montalbano’ detective books were a hit in Italy before being shown in the UK with subtitles, which doesn’t help their popularity. The group of people that I am struggling to share a plane and yet not be seen with are the kind who don’t mind subtitles at all, in fact they love that it makes them feel part of a more exclusive club: The ‘Don’t listen and can’t lift a suitcase’ club. A lot of them seem to be retired teachers so I guess that it goes with the territory. The problem I have is that I need to be a part of the group without actually appearing on any lists as one of them. I have acted as a coach driver on previous ‘events’ but coach-driving is a bit of a closed shop in Sicily unless you are family if you know what I mean.

With only a weeks prior notice I read and re-read the background on the author, his books and filming locations so that I was expert enough to act as tour guide. One of the secrets of being a good guide is to acknowledge the person in the party who is an obsessive expert and knows more than you – there’s always one – and use their knowledge to enhance the experience of the others without letting the 'Anorak' take over

What I think Melissa will look like today

 

What Melissa actually does look like today

 

 

 

Sicily again

When it rains, as it often does in Yorkshire, England, my back aches and I remember Sicily and the treachery of a woman. I have the twin scars, physical and mental, of the stab in the back and simultaneous shot to the heart, that nearly ended me on the slopes of an ironically erupting Etna so many years ago. We were supposed to be working together but work had strayed over that invisible line into leisure, then pleasure, as I allowed myself to let go of all sense and training, completely, for the first, and almost certainly last, time.

Men are often accused of objectifying women, dividing them into mere body-parts to the exclusion of their higher virtues.  If they knew what I know about really dividing people into their body parts they may not be so quick to judge. In any case Melissa Generossi was infinitely more than any sum of her exquisite parts that you might imagine. Italians, especially in the hot, irritably poor South, often sound like they are arguing. As a Northerner from the shores of the lakes, she had an accent that, when talking her own language was as an angel, laughing, but when speaking English….. she was like a hair-trigger to the testosterzone. I was always pleased to see her and I actually did have a pistol in my pocket (It was a Sig Sauer 9mm automatic but that would have spoiled the alliteration) She worked for some national anti-mafia squad and I was assigned to the case as there were connections with the smart, young, London boys who had filled the gap after the likes of the Krays had imploded and their ‘colleagues’ in the Met had been routed-out. I actually knew some of them from University which in those days was the only kind of facial-recognition available (University, eh? And I’ll bet you thought that we were all estate-boys done good, like the SAS, didn’t you?).

She laughed a lot, showing her perfect teeth and then touched your arm and all the other things that I should have recognised that she’d learnt in her the Flirting module of her Body-language course,  (She would have got a ’Distinction’). Instead and quite foolishly I’d allowed myself to think that I really was that attractive…

This not Melissa, but a young Sophia Loren. Melissa is better-looking…

For these and other reasons I was heading off to Luton airport with mixed feelings.

Deadly revolver

There is a large parking space outside the Gigolo marked ‘Hotel Use Only’ and yet it seemed that our concierge friend seemed keen to allow only a select few access. A barely opened window, a swift exchange of something each way between concierge and passenger and that was it. No-one got out or tried to enter the hotel at all. Now I may be somewhat advanced in years and more than a little naïve but I know a drug-deal when I see one. In many countries the Police have all but given up trying to control drug-taking and concentrate instead on catching large shipments at or about the point of entry. Spain is no exception but this amount of ‘traffic’ was blatant so I had a good look around for any others who might be watching the coke-dealing Concierge. Witnesses are an unwanted intrusion in my game and you never know, some ‘ambitious ‘Guardia’ might be looking to make his name by getting in my way. It wasn’t long before I spotted some workmen who were a little out of place as they came in and out of a building with a skip outside further down the street.

The skip never seemed to get any fuller despite their constant tipping and then I realised that the lump of rubbish in the wheelbarrow stayed where it was as they tipped-it, just a handful of dust flew as the front of the barrow hit the skip – clever! A van that seemed impervious to parking restrictions also figured in my observations so it looked very much as though I wasn’t the only watcher. It looks as though I’ll have to work a little cleverer here.

We judge and remember people in many ways, maybe their walk, what they are wearing or something that they are carrying. I have noticed that if you wear brown clothing and carry a broom you are rendered invisible in most situations. Wear black clothing with maybe a tie or scarf in a primary colour people assume you are staff and therefore also invisible. Carry a clipboard and the illusion is complete. Turn that clipboard into a weapon and you’ve cracked it.

Not all clipboards are created equal. Most are plastic or covered paper but a rare few are made of metal. I bought one of those and sharpened one corner with a hand-file and emery-paper to a keen edge that would cut toilet paper, so skin and tissue won’t be an issue.

 

Hotels have cameras facing out, usually, to see who is arriving, so it was important to stay in the zone of the revolving doors, allowing the glass to distort images and also so that I can go out again straight away.

Before long the target reveals himself by making a rare effort to help a customer into their waiting Mercedes.

Once the car has gone I follow him into the revolving door, waiting until I am almost right around and out again before bumping the glass. The door stops – once – twice and he comes back at me, shouting angrily to ‘stay away from the door’, putting his hand in to push me back from the divider. As if to comply I step back, slashing the clipboard into and smartly across his neck and pushing him back out of the doorway at the same time. The door spins, then stops again, with room for me to walk smartly away outside, as he blunders into the next segment of space, fountaining around the rapidly reddening, no longer rotating, scene of his demise.

On the street, all is quiet at first, but then a scream from the hotel doorway lets the ‘builders’ know something is wrong. They  shout into their sleeve-microphones and run towards the building. The doors of the badly -parked van burst open with more men as a black BMW pulls up at the kerb, decides better of it and speeds-off – directly into the path of the now no longer-parked van. Choas and confusion cover me as I round the corner and pick up the accordion again. Slipping the  clip-board into the back, I pull the bellows together and strap the instrument up before slowly resuming my get-away. I deserve a coffee, perhaps in the Thyssen gallery, a very civilised way to spend an afternoon in Madrid.

Murder in Madrid

Madrid is a capital city and like all such beasts, its power sucks in money and power from the country around. Where there is money and power there will always be crime and criminals at the highest levels, which means lots of work for me. I don’t usually find out too much about my targets, or ‘VIPs’ as I call them, but in general they do tend to be actual VIPs, since the lower orders are more easily disposed-of and their passing draws less attention, so the speciality disposals for which I charge so much are not needed. This time my target data package is about the concierge at a city-centre hotel. Anything unusual like that sets off a warning light with me, so I decided to spend more time than usual on observation. I got a bit fed-up of my old ‘Homeless man’ disguise and so this time decided to hide in plain sight. 

 

 

Now I don’t know how it happened, but I have managed to meet a woman in most Spanish cities who have helped me over the years. Not all of them are like la Contessa, but my friend in Madrid, Laura Valrojo Campos comes close. While Madame Alvarez-Snuff is an exotic mixture of cultures, Laura is achingly Spanish, from the casual elegance of her dark, curling hair to the rapid-fire quickness of her speech and the thought process behind it. So far as I know she has never been involved in any of the darker activities of my profession but she was originally an actress and it shows in her ability to watch, copy and blend into any social situation. Her real strength is in her discrete network of family contacts across the city that can save you days of work. Her Grandmother was evidently one of the notorious ‘Rojas’ an all-female gang in the thirties. Across Spain Communists later became known as ‘Rojos’ but in Madrid the name of Valrojo still commands respect if not fear.

 

A swift chat with Laura sent me in the direction of a back-street, traditional music shop. The owner, who basked in the name of Jaimi Castro Hernan-Gomez, had stayed in business long enough to see his beloved vinyl return to popularity but no longer had the money or energy left to take advantage of it. He told me much of Madrid and its music scene but thankfully that left no space for questions, as he sold me an old, non-functioning accordion (at a no-doubt inflated price) into which I inserted some I-pad speakers and a jack socket from El Corte Ingles, the Madrid branch of which is the largest department store in Spain. An adapted selfie-stick mechanism and a carefully drilled hole turned the accordion into a stealthy camera as well. Thus equipped and with the theme to ‘Maigret’ and the ‘Third Man’ downloaded to overcome my acute lack of musical ability (and protect any musically sensitive passers-by) I found a prime spot across from the ‘Hotel Gigolo’ and watched.

 

An hour passed, one euro and fifty cents overflowed from my orange collection box and I got an idea of what was going down at the dark, tiled entrance of the hotel.

Most of the time I work on my own, for obvious health and safety reasons (my health and safety, obviously, not others) but I have to own up to using certain friends in certain places, one of them being Barcelona. Over the years I have met and worked with people whose abilities and integrity I trust (almost) implicitly and one of these is Donatila Alvarex-Snuff Countess of Catalunya. I am not sure if she is actually a real Countess but that doesn’t matter a jot. She moves in all the best circles and knows everyone who is anyone in the very structured world of Catalan society. Her only frailty is in a weakness for over-endowed young men which can sometimes affect her judgement in matters of the heart. In matters of stopping someone else’s heart she is coldly professional. A quick social media post established that she was in the city so we arranged to meet.
You might think that social media are not secure but you would be surprised how a simple code can enable easy communication. When you see those pictures of ugly babies with ‘Gorgeous child’ replies or women who are not obviously contenders for a beauty contest with ‘Lovely Lady’ you have to realise that all is not as it seems!

The Bar El Gato Negro is in the Barri Gotik area which is very touristy but an obvious place to be seen if you are pretending to be a tourist. The countess entered like a force of nature, oblivious, imperious and entitled. I had seated myself in a corner with my back against the wall (old fieldcraft habits die hard) and she joined me, starting the process of an extravagant continental greeting from several metres away. ‘Darling!’ She held out her hand and I kissed it, clicking my heels like Captain von Trapp at an Officers ball. She leant forward, and almost nibbled my ear, whispering conspiratorially ‘who are we topping this time – or did you just have a desperate need to see me’ the waiter brought over a glass of her favourite local red wine served cold, (as it was designed to be) without prompting and gazed in unabashed admiration over the dark polished wood of the bar. ‘You have an admirer there’ ‘Oh, Jordi Mas, you mean’ she laughed ‘he was good, but I broke him – I break them all, but I never’ she smiled’ broke you, darling’ ‘Sadly untrue’ I countered.

With the pleasantries over, we got down to business and I made my goodbyes, leaving her thinking about giving Jordi another try and him hoping she would have ‘una mas Mas’.  Back at the Fisherman’s houses, Mrs Victor had pounced on the brochure for the Besos Tower and demanded that they visit it ‘as a family’ that very afternoon, which is why I was following their taxi on my borrowed scooter. As I guessed, Mrs V and the boys darted for the playground whilst Victor headed up the stairs for some peace, quiet and a view of the coast. A call on my mobile set up the next phase and soon I heard the rhythmic whump-whump of a helicopter approaching. The tall buildings around deflected the noise so it could be coming from anywhere. Victor reached the top landing and another message sent the helicopter hurtling at low level over the top of the tower.

The sudden noise and shock sent a surprised Victor spinning around, grabbing for the safety-cable rail. My cork bands had kept the acid next to the cable long enough to do its weakening work whilst giving the appearance of rust, before dropping off (it wasn’t cork, really, but I’m not giving you all my secrets).  His motion was barely arrested as the cable snapped and he went over the edge. People who do that in films scream, but in reality the shock and disbelief usually stun them temporarily before the ground does a more permanent job.

I moved in towards the body as did others, since moving away immediately is suspicious, before turning back towards the scooter and leaving. La Contessa had ordered the helicopter to collect her from the ‘W’ hotel but to wait behind the Besos until called. The pilot’s timing was superb and she was obviously beyond reproach.

Job done and I have a few hours to wait before my flight so I’m going to visit the new motorcycle museum. They have a Ducati in there that won the ‘24 horas of Montjuic’ race in the seventies and I’d really like to see it…

Victor hasn’t been making his wife happy. You don’t need to be an expert linguist to work out that his excursions to meet Wanda have not been popular. I once stayed in a similar fisherman’s house near Agde in Southern France and you could hear every conversation in every house as you laid awake in the summer heat. From my quiet corner next to a rubbish bin with ‘homeless’ looking clothes and filthy hat I would have gotten the gist of her argument, even if it hadn’t been punctuated by a pan flying out of the window. The kids are a bit of a handful so I don’t think that can be helping her mood – which gives me an idea…

Like most hotels, the Arts has a rack of leaflets detailing local attractions and I swap over to a cleaner hat and jacket then take a selection for perusal over a Turkish coffee in the seafront bar that our target liked. It’s called the ‘Carpe Diem’ and I note it as a likely dinner venue since they have Kobe beef which is a particular favourite of mine. Barcelona is built between two rivers, the Besos and the Llobregat. The Besos used to be Europe’s most polluted river but now that much of the industry it served has gone, things are looking up, for the fish, if not the workers. One of the industrial features that remain is the Besos Water Tower (Torre de las Aigues Besos) which is open to visitors who like to climb the many steps to get a view of the coastline and Barcolonetta Beach.

At the foot of the tower is a children’s playground of the type that the Spanish do so well. I select the relevant leaflet and returning to tramp mode, slip a couple of leaflets through Victor’s house door. 

Hardware stores, or Ferreteria are some of my favourite haunts in Spain. Like old-fashioned stores used to be in England they stock everything, from Fork Handles to Four Candles and I soon find one that has what I need.

I buy rubber gloves that I ‘try on’ whilst handling the other items and pay for in cash from my ‘clean’ bag – ie money that I haven’t actually touched. It’s not far to the Besos Tower and soon I am standing on the top landing at the back of a small group, the last of the day, who are taking lots of photos, more photos in fact, than a Japanese man with a new camera on his first holiday. They gradually make their way down and I get to work, wrapping thin strips of cork around the end of the safety bars and then dosing them with the acid that I have in a glass bottle with a glass stopper. That stuff is too strong for any other material to hold it. You can’t buy it in England due to EU safety laws but in Spain… Now I just need to make a phone call to a contact at the airport and we are in business…